Optima D51 battery - why elearnaid? Seattle area installers?

Why?

The elearnaid kit includes shipping, so there are no nasty surprises where we said $165 but shipping made us wrong.

No Battery fits the Prius except Toyota's battery. elearnaids kit alters the wiring harness so a battery that 'does not fit' does.

All the folks who ordered from elearnaid liked the process, that encourages repeat business.

If you find an installer, Hobbit has an illustrated how to for them.

Prius 12V swap

 

Their kit, plus their very good instructions, plus their very good service. They appear quite consistent in fully charging the battery immediately before shipment. Car dealers sometimes let batteries sit around long enough to start sulphating before installation.

The OEM battery lists at $140 and is a little easier to install. If a dealer will install a new OEM battery for less than $200 that's certainly the easiest solution.

 

I went to Moss Alley Home Page and labor cost was $86 after tax. It came out cheaper to replace the original w/the optima than going through the dealer who wanted about $265 before tax to replace it with a stock battery.

 

Just FYI, I replaced my 06 prius 12V battery last weekend in less than 30 minutes with a OEM replacement from the dealer for $138. Only tools I needed was a socket wrench with a 10mm and 12 mm socket. Wasn't a difficult job at all, anyone that can use a socket wrench and unplug a couple wire harnesses can tackle this job.

 

You really don't need "Prius experience" to change a 12V battery...

 

...just follow the instructions and don't drop any bolts :_>

 

Hook the ground wire up last... it's safer!

 

Regarding the brake power supply: just remove the bolts that secure it to the hatch floor, and move it aside. You don't even have to remove the wiring harness connector.

Buy whatever tools you will need. This is really not that big of a deal and the tools will be useful for other purposes in the future.

 

Look at this as an opportunity/excuse to get some new tools to play with!

 

It may take a lot of hand strength or a vise to take apart the positive terminal assembly. It was about at the limit of possibility for me without a vise to help hold it.

 

Agree; I had a similar experience when installing a Panasonic battery in my 2001. Amazing how tight that positive terminal nut can be.

 

My 2007 Prius has been suffering a dead 12 volt battery off and on for around a year now. I have not been driving it much and usually just have to hook up my battery charger to get it started, if it's dead. Well yesterday this no longer worked and I had to actually connect the charter directly to the battery in the back, disconnecting the battery from the car's electronics. Once I got the battery fully charged, I reconnected everything and discovered the master warning light was on. I also lost my trip mileages and data for the current tank of fuel. I couldn't find a way to reset the master warning light and my scan gauge wasn't showing any codes, but after a few minutes it reset itself. I then drove the car for about an hour and everything seemed fine.

Since I know the battery will just go dead in a week if the car is not driven enough, I decided it was time to order the e Learn Aid kit. I feel going with the Optima Yellow Top is the better option and this kit will make the install much easier. Although, I can handle replacing a car battery.

Since I'm always looking for the best deal I was going to purchase the Optima on Amazon for $155 shipped with no state tax, then buy the installation kit from e Learn Aid for $15. But it turned out to be less expensive buying the whole thing from e Learn Aid with tax, thanks to their sale price and free shipping.

 

I am beginning to wonder about e Learn Aid. I ordered my 2007 Prius battery kit on Saturday and here it is Tuesday without a word from them. So I called to inquire about my order and they said it should arrive to me today. But nothing has shown up as of yet.

I find it odd that they didn't send me tracking info or even notify me that my order had shipped. This is surprising because forum members say good things about this company, so hopefully I am just experiencing an anomaly.

UPDATE: The battery and kit just arrived! There is no handle on the battery or a lead post connected to the cable, as shown in some member installations. I assume e Learn Aid changed things for whatever reason.

E Learn Aid just raised the price of their 2004-2009 Prius Optima battery & installation kit from $165 to $180. The installation kit alone went up from $15 to $20.

 

My cable and connector looks like that also. It's more like the OEM negative battery connector.

In the past some members had received a negative post connector that was made of lead, like the separate positive connector. Here are some pictures of them:

Prius Optima Aux

Prius 12V swap

 

Yeah, that's about how long it took me the first time (on wife's car). When I did mine it was a little quicker, but I found about 1 1/2" of water in the bottom of the battery well (clean, not rusty or dirty) and it took time to remove that. Still trying to figure out where it came from.

You did right...the instructions say to do it that way...and tape the loose end to avoid any short.

There, ya see, it wasn't all that bad!

[edit]There were several times though, that I wished I was left-handed instead of right. It would have been a lot easier![/edit]